Rajiv Gandhi assassination case: Centre files review petition against SC order releasing convicts, including Nalini

The Centre on Thursday filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against it’s November 11 order allowing the release of six convicts including Nalini Sriharan in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The move comes amid severe criticism from the Congress. 

The Centre said the order granting remission to the convicts, who had assassinated the former prime minister, was passed without affording it adequate opportunity for hearing despite it being a necessary party to the case.

The government highlighted the alleged procedural lapse, saying the convicts seeking remission did not formally implead the Centre as a party which resulted in its non-participation in the case.

On November 11, the Supreme Court set free Nalini Sriharan and five other remaining convicts who are serving life term for about three decades in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, noting that its earlier order releasing another convict A G Perarivalan was equally applicable to them.

The top court ordered the premature release of the six convicts after holding that all of them are deemed to have served their sentence in relation to the crime. The former prime minister was assassinated by a woman suicide bomber named Dhanu at a poll rally in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on the night of May 21, 1991.

Besides Nalini, the five others released were R P Ravichandran, Nalini's husband V Sriharan alias Murugan, Santhan, Robert Payas and Jayakumar. Sriharan, Santhan, Robert and Jayakumar are Sri Lankan nationals.

The Congress termed as "totally unacceptable and completely erroneous" the apex court order and said it has shocked the nation's conscience.

The party also said it disagreed with former party chief Sonia Gandhi, whose appeal helped in the commutation of death sentence of Nalini in 2000. It asserted that the party's stand had been consistent on this over the years despite the statements of the Gandhi family as it considers this an "institutional matter".

A TADA court had in 1998 sentenced 26 of the accused to death. In May 1999, the top court upheld the death sentence of Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan and Nalini, commuted the death sentence of three to a life term and freed the remaining 19 convicts.

Nalini's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2000. In 2014, the top court commuted the death sentence of Perarivalan to life imprisonment along with those of Santhan and Murugan on grounds of delay in deciding their mercy petitions.